Opinion: Process not in place for this type of amendment

Published July 22, 2011 at 10:27 am

The opinion piece headlined “Amendment process gives Minnesotans a voice” in last week’s paper compels me to write.
While I fully agree that legislators should be cautious in over-using the amendment process, I think in this event it shouldn’t be allowed to happen at all.
I do not believe that this process was ever designed for us to determine if some of our fellow citizens should have fewer rights than ourselves. To put to a “popular vote” whether “Bob and John” down the street or “Jane and Jennifer” a town over should have the same ability as all of the rest of us is disturbing, to say the least.
If we open it up to this, do we then open it up to determining that others among us may not be as worthy as well? Minorities? The disabled? The elderly? How about non-child-bearing heterosexuals?
Why should we as citizens arbitrarily decided some of our neighbors are just not as equal-rights worthy as ourselves?
Reach out and embrace others. Stop looking for a way to continually divide communities. — Lisa Conway, Elk River